Freezer Meals (Once a month cooking)

Hey, anyone out there know some good freezer meals? I'm looking to prepare and freeze some meals before the baby is born so that Jake can cook for them if I'm too tired or busy with the baby, etc.

I'm going to make breakfast burritos and bean & cheese burritos, because Jake and Jarren love those. So I can buy in bulk and make a bunch and freeze them. This way the two of them aren't living off of chips and cookies. I mean honestly, those of you that know Jake, know that it would be sugar all day everyday if he could have it.

So any ideas? Cheap and Easy preferably :)

P.S. Check out my photo blog, I just did a newborn's pictures and it made me WAY baby hungry. I'm ready for this little guy to be here!

Maternity Pictures

I decided this afternoon to set up the tripod and use the self-timer. We wanted to get some maternity pictures. Here are a couple from the shoot that I love.

I couldn't decide which I liked better between these two, so I know they are the same picture, but I love them both.

And last, my two handsome boys.

Potty Training...Yikes

We have been trying to potty train Jarren before the baby gets here. He isn't working with us really well and I'm starting to get frustrated. I really don't want to have 2 children in diapers and it would save us a lot of money if he would just do it.

In the last couple days he has pooped his pants 3 times and peed in them twice. UGH! I'm lucky Jake has been here for the poopy ones because I just don't think my prego stomach could handle it. Just the smell sends me running. He will tell us, "big boys potty on the toilet" and "I'm a big boy" but still won't TELL us if he has to go, we have to time him with the timer.

I found a potty chart online that I'm going to try to use with him starting tomorrow. We will see how that goes. Any suggestions on how to potty train a stubborn boy??

Baby Stories

I was laying on my back trying to show Jake what the baby does at 2am. That of course is his play time, waking me up and everything. Anyway, he goes CRAZY. It feels like he is doing flips while punching and kicking me at the same time. So I was laying on my back and Jake lays down, lays his head on my stomach and tries to freak the baby out by talking in a really deep but loud voice. Well it worked! The baby fired back by kicking him right in the face. It was pretty funny. I could not stop laughing. When I finally calmed down enough to let Jake try again, the baby kicked him right in the nose. That was it, I was done, I could not stop laughing long enough for Jake to continue. It was hilarious.

Our friends had their baby this last Thursday so we went to go visit them in the hospital, we took Jarren to see how he would respond to the baby. He did really well! He wanted to help hold him and give him kisses and everything. It was really cute. He even started calling him "Ma-hen" (Madden), even though we haven't decided on a name completely, apparently that's the one Jarren is sticking with. I tried to explain to him that it wasn't the baby from mommy's tummy and that this baby was Asher. He looked at me with a puzzled face and said "Asher? No Ma-hen." It was pretty funny trying to explain it to him.

We need to post some pictures to update. I'm hoping to do some maternity pictures with Jake and Jarren sometime soon so maybe we can post those.

I married a...

So the other day after class I asked Jake what he learned about that day. (In psychology) He told me that he learned about persistence. So joking around I said "Oh, so you learned about me" and looked up at him smiling. Without missing a beat he said, "no, we learned about nagging yesterday." and started laughing.

I married a comedian everyone.

The Count Down

13 more weeks and I'll have another one of these...

We are finally in the last trimester!

It hurts to tell you "I told you so"

During the Superbowl last night Jarren was standing in front of the TV spinning in circles. I asked him to stop because I could just picture him falling and hitting his head (he's really good at falling down). He told me "no mom!" so I let him continue for a minute and was about to ask him to stop again when he fell and hit his head on our coffee table. He smacked right next to his eye on the very edge of the table. It was one of the worst noises ever! It instantly started bruising, I've never seen a bruise come on that fast. I felt so bad for him, I scooped him up right away and just started hugging him. I wanted to cry cause I could imagine the pain he was in. Jake jumped up and grabbed a bag of frozen veggies out of the freezer and stuck it on.

He wouldn't let us keep it on long but I told him if he wanted to hold it on he could. He did that for another minute, but couldn't take the cold so he stopped. Then we gave him some tylenol for the pain. I felt bad for my little man, I wish he would just learn to listen to me!
The first picture is right after it happened:
This was the next morning right after he woke up:
And this one is a little bit more into the day:
He's officially had his first black eye! So sad :(

Quarter of a Century

Jake's birthday was on Friday. He's now 25 years old. We were able to have a nice relaxing day. Jarren and I went shopping that day, since I have been really sick up until this week I wasn't able to get out. Let me tell you how grateful we are for gift cards! I was able to get him 3 shirts and 2 CD's as well as take him to dinner at the Olive Garden for a total of $13. Whoo! Money has been tight since I was laid off, so I was really happy to have those and be able to give him a good birthday.

The next day we went to the BYU/UTAH game. Jake bought the tickets back at the beginning of the month as a birthday present to himself. That was a fun game besides my constantly running nose and headache. But Jake loved it and we were able to go with some of our good friends so it was a good night.

Anyway, Happy Birthday Jake! We love you!!

Photography Special

If you know anyone with an infant --

From January 22nd - February 12th, I will be doing "mini-sittings" for infants 0-4 months. 45 minute sittings for $45 (this includes the CD with the copyright release). Email me at jao.photography08@gmail.com to schedule a sitting.

Holidays 2009

I know I'm a slacker, but I figured I might as well put all the holiday pictures together in one post. Halloween starting at the bottom and Christmas at the top. I already had a post with Halloween day, this is just carving the pumpkins. Jarren didn't really enjoy the slime. We had Birthdays and Holiday parties in the mix so here are some pics to look at.

Kiddie Kandids is closed!!!

I'm so upset I can't sleep right now, I just found out at 11:30pm that I no longer have a job. Kiddie Kandids has closed it's doors forever. On top of that, I've been told, they aren't paying us for the last two weeks that we have worked. And if they are paying us, they don't have to pay us immediately. They can get away with this because they claimed bankruptcy.

I think this is the most classless thing I've ever heard off. Thousands of employees are getting laid off tonight across the US and the way we found out was through the grape vine and facebook.

If anyone knows of any place hiring, that will hire a pregnant woman with 3 months left to go, please let me know.

In the mean time, if you know anyone who needs pictures taken, please send them my way.

It's a boy!

I'm such a horrible blogger. After the new year, I'm posting all our holiday pictures starting from Halloween. I've decided just to do one big holiday post. As for this one, I'm at least announcing the gender! We are having another little boy! Jarren will have a brother to play with. The first one is him giving us a thumbs up and showing off his muscles. The second is his feet. Then the next is the front view of his face, he wouldn't give us a profile. Then the last is him showing us he's a boy! The name we are currently liking is Madden Jacob. But we are coming up with a couple others for options.